‘I can’t hold on much longer,’ Irisis said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve got no strength in my injured wrist.’
Her arms were wrapped around the hood, and she had managed to twist her bloody wrist through the rope that was barely holding the hood on, but her fingers were slipping as the hood flapped up and down.
What if it tore away? It looked as if it might. Tiaan reached up on tiptoe and took hold of her friend’s wrist, the uninjured one. It was more reassurance than security, but Irisis managed a smile.
‘Just a few seconds more,’ Tiaan said. ‘We’re nearly down. Just hang on a few seconds more.’
The crowns of tall trees loomed up. Tiaan slowed, directed the thapter towards a gap and risked a glance over her shoulder. A host of lyrinx were heading after her like a swarm of wasps, and she could see dozens more threading their way down the steep slope below the cliff. She’d have to be quick.
The hood pulled free of the fastenings Nish had fixed to the rim of the hatch. The wind threw it backwards, and Irisis with it, until it was brought up by the ropes. Tiaan lost her grip on Irisis’s wrist. Irisis slammed into the rise leading up to the rear platform, was held there momentarily by the wind, then began to slip inexorably down the side.
It was still a long way to the ground. Tiaan couldn’t reach back to Irisis now; couldn’t do anything but head for the steeply sloping forest floor and hope she got there before Irisis fell.
She didn’t quite make it. The thapter was still five or six spans up when Irisis’s fingers were pulled free and she went over the side.
FIFTY-SIX
Tiaan threw the thapter at the ground, which sloped steeply here. The base of the machine hit wet, clayey soil and kept sliding, and she had to spin it around to avoid trees and rocks. She slowed, stopping against the base of a giant tree whose trunk was wider than the thapter was long.
She couldn’t see Irisis anywhere. A fall from that height onto solid ground could well have killed her, but the slope was so steep here, and the ground so slippery, that it would have helped to break her fall.
The sky had clouded right over now and grown ominously black. Lightning flashed, thunder roared and it began to rain. A spatter of hail struck the thapter.
‘Irisis?’ she yelled.
No reply. Tiaan could hear the lyrinx crashing down the slope above her. They’d be here within minutes. The fliers would be even quicker.
Her orders had been made more explicit after she’d nearly lost the thapter in the burning silk warehouse. Tiaan was not to risk the thapter, or herself, more than was necessary to complete the job. And once the mission had succeeded, or failed in this case, she must not risk the thapter to save any life but her own.
Her duty was absolutely clear. If she couldn’t find Irisis in the next minute she had to abandon her to whatever fate the lyrinx had in store for such a continued thorn in their side. And there still hadn’t been time to check on Nish. Tears pricked at her eyes and she dashed them away furiously. There wasn’t time for that either.
‘Irisis?’ she shouted.
Tiaan calculated where Irisis should have fallen and circled up and across the slope, looking for a body. She didn’t find one though she did discover a long yellow streak where Irisis had hit the slope, tearing though the thin grass and exposing the clay underneath.
Tiaan followed it down. Irisis must have slid a long way, and fast enough to smash bones or skull if she hit an obstacle. The minute was up. She hesitated, then decided to give Irisis another thirty seconds. The enemy couldn’t be that close yet, surely?
She headed directly down and saw a pair of clay-covered feet sticking up in the air some twenty spans below. Irisis had skidded all that way, then fallen over a couple of embankments before embedding herself in a wiry bush.
‘Are you all right?’ Tiaan called, settling the thapter against a tree trunk to prevent it from sliding. She was afraid to get out in case it slipped.
The feet moved. Irisis began to pull herself out of the bush. ‘Just wonderful,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Apart from ten thousand bruises, a badly wrenched ankle and a hole in my wrist I could thread a needle through.’